Monday, February 28, 2011

BEETHOVEN'S LAST WORDS (and Voltaire's, and Hugo's, and Dickinson's, el al)






"Friends applaud, the comedy is finished."
           - last words of Ludwig van Beethoven, died 1827

“I am dying. I haven't drunk champagne for a long time.”


                - last words of author Anton Chekhov, died 1904
“All my possessions for a moment of time.”

          - last words of Queen Elizabeth I of England, died 1603







 "The flames already?"




- the last words of Voltaire, 1778,


            after noticing a candle burning by his bedside


“Here am I, dying of a hundred good symptoms.”
  - last words of author Alexander Pope, died 1744
 “Did I not tell you I was writing this for myself?”

         - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, of his Requiem. Died 1791  



“If you will send for a doctor I will see him now.”
              - last words of author Emily Bronte, died 1848




 “Get my swan costume ready.”
             - last words of ballerina Anna Pavlova, died 1931

 “I wish I could pass away like this.”
             - last words of artist Vincent van Gogh, died 1890
 “I see black light.”

   - last words of author Victor Hugo, 1885


“I must go in, the fog is rising.”
- last words of poet Emily Dickinson, died 1886





“Either that wallpaper goes or I do.”
- last words of author Oscar Wilde, 1900


“It is very beautiful over there. God bless... God damn. Go away, I'm all right.”


- last words of author H. G. Wells, died 1946 



“I knew it. I knew it! Born in a hotel room - and God damn it - died in a hotel room!”
          - last words of playwright Eugene O'Neill, died 1953



  “I’m afraid I’m being an awful nuisance.”

               - last words of poet Edith Sitwell, died 1964

 “Let's cool it brothers.”
          - last words of black rights leader Malcolm X, died 1966



 “Why not? Yeah.”
               - last words of Harvard psychologist and 
LSD “acid guru” Timothy Leary, died 1996




“Crito, I owe a cock to Asclepius. Will you remember to pay the debt.”
- last words of Socrates, died 399 BCE
“I am quite happy. Unaccountably happy.”
      - last words of poet Allen Ginsberg, died 1997




  “I should never have switched from Scotch to Martinis.”

- last words of actor Humphrey Bogart, died 1957

“That was the best ice-cream soda I ever tasted.”
- last words of comedian Lou Costello, died 1959

“I want you to tell me the truth. Did Ernest really like me?”
  - author and wit Dorothy Parker a few days before her death



“Excuse my dust.”
- epitaph of Dorothy Parker, died 1967

“Don't let it end like this. Tell them I said something.”
         - last words of Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa, died 1923

“Go on, get out - last words are for fools who haven't said enough.”
                       - last words of Karl Marx, died 1883


"For three days after death hair and fingernails continue to grow but phone calls taper off."
                         - television show host Johnny Carson

“(With some) their death is a stroke of cleverness: it makes the world more enigmatic, more difficult to understand than it was when they were alive, which is the true task of thought.”
                                  
                                    - Jean Baudrillard, died, 2007.
Posted by at

4 comments:

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)